Report Inappropriate Comments

Mr Kelly,

As a parent of two kids in our schools, I share your concern about the state of education in our city and I too have some issues with the consolidation process so far. As to your point about Vets opening next fall, that was the plan of the original Long Term Facilities Planning Committee. That plan was voted down and the public's call for an outside consultant was heeded. By the time the RFP for the consultant was developed and put out to bid, a consultant hired, and their work completed, the State Fire Marshal had denied Warwick any further extensons to delaying the final round of fire code woirk at Gorton & Aldrich ($1.8 million and for which we had, I think 8 or 9 years of deferments). So the opportunity to keep those two schools open while Vets closed for a year evaporated. With respect to a full time legal counsel, Warwick had a full time legal counsel/HR Director for years, which was, in my view, a blatant conflict. The aftermath of the Atoyan incident proved that, in my opinion, and saw that person dismissed and outside counsel hired. I believe that many, if not most, districts utilize outside counsel instead of full-time counsel. Unfortunately, the litigiousness that Warwick has had for the last couple of years has, I'm sure, driven up that cost. Special Education is a deep concern for me as a parent who has a student with an IEP and I continue to look into to this to better understand what is going on with respect to that. Lastly, with respect to the upcoming bond. I fully support it and we need to be honest with ourselves as a community. Our newest school is 45 years old and we've made deferred maintainence a form of art. Our schools are not compliant with American With Disabilities Act (ADA) and that Act was passed in 1990! We should be ashamed of ourselves. The Vets heating system is original to the school (1955), as is it's elevator Much of the infrastructure is original to these buildings. Most all of them still contain asbestos. Most of the items you mention to replace are items that can't be financed out of the general operationg budget. The fact is we need the bond to be able to upgrade classrooms, increase technology, increase energy efficiency, replace boilers, roofs, and windows that have outlived their life cycles and so much more. The recently replaced Pilgrim Auditorium stage was structurally unsound and contained literal 'no-go' zones for the Drama and Band students. It's football field contained hazards to the althletes who play on it. Good schools and good commnuities go hand in hand. We have inflicted such neglect on these buildings that it's harder and harder to provide a 21st education to our kids. Other districts have buildings just as old as ours but they maintained and invested in them. It's time we did the same. Regarding Elementary consolidation, I don;t think that Sept of 2017 is the prudent course nor am I convinced that these were the right buildings chosen. I'd prefer it be delayed until Sept of 2018,

David Testa